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These days the seasons rarely seem to do what they should. Summer is more often than not a washout. So too winter, with fields more likely to be covered in pools of flood water than drifts of virgin snow.

Autumn, though, remains the stuff of childhood memories. Scuffing leaves with your shoes; the sharp tang in the air; the delicious thrill of lying in bed on the first properly cold morning of the year while all outside lies under hard frost. Raincoats drying on radiators and the first day of school.

Albert ­Camus, the French philosopher, deemed autumn comparable to a “second spring”, one “where every leaf is a flower”. The difference is that while spring is the season of ­renewal, autumn’s...

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